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SeaWorld's Shamu show is one of the most popular attractions that Seaworld park has. The enormous killer whales do tricks, jumps, and acrobatics with their trainers.
Shamu's newest show is called "Believe". Compared to the previous Shamu show, 'Believe' is a theatretical show with a storyline. It revolves around the idea that if you "believe", you can make your career wish to come true... like the Shamu trainers in SeaWorld.
The story of 'Believe' starts out with a video portion, show on giant LED screens. We see a boy who has carved out a killer whale tail, dreaming about killer whales... and his dream seems to come true.
 These four LED screens move about during the show, changing into different positions and configurations. Sometimes they form a giant one screen, sometimes they form two big screens both made up of two, and sometimes they are four separate ones.
But the amazing thing to observe is when these screens rotate and spin around, are positioned in angles, or move here or there. That really adds to the show.
In the middle of 'Believe' show, a trainer tells his/her story about being an animal trainer, and encourages the audience to believe in their dream.
 About two thirds into the show, 6 trainers dive in and swim all the way across the pool to the audience side, climb out of the pool, and go shake hands with some people in the audience. Then they get the audience to wave their hands and to chant and "summon" Shamu out - and soon the killer whales come to do their tail splashes so the audience can get wet!
As a whole, a lot of the tricks the whales do are similar or the same as in the previous Shamu shows. They jump out of water in various ways, spin, or lift the trainers up from the water, or the trainers ride on the orcas - all the good stuff.
History of Shamu
Shamu was the name of a certain killer whale who was taken into captivity in October 1965 and lived at Sea World of California for 6 years. Shamu has since then been made into a registered trademark, and is now a show-name for many of the killer whales in SeaWorld - just like 'Namu', 'Ramu', 'Kandu' and 'Baby Shamu'.
 Killer whales are the biggest members of the dolphin family, and they truly do have some size: female killer whales weigh on the average about 3,000-8,000 lb, and males weigh about 8,000 - 12,000 lb! Killer whales are also called orca.
Killer whales are at the top of the food chain in the ocean, meaning that about all other animales in the sea can be their prey. They are also one of the fastest swimmers among sea mammals. Killer whales eat mostly fish, also seals, otters, walruses - and can even eat other whales.
In the wild, killer whales live in groups called pods, which can have anywhere from five to thirty whales, both males and females. One can find killer whales all over the world, but mostly near Arctic and Antarctic - where the food is plentiful. Fortunately they are not endangered.
Our pictures are from the previous years' Shamu show; however the new show includes the same kind of behaviors and acrobatics. Click on the small pictures to see large photos.
Shamu.com - an official Shamu site.
Shamu cam
Check how Shamu is doing with this webcam from SeaWorld San Diego
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